(AP) — More local governments in California are resisting the state’s efforts to resist the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, and political experts see politics at play as Republicans try to fire up voters in a state where the GOP has grown weak.

The use of the word “unsustainable” had a distant echo this month as the League of California Cities issued a study of CalPERS rates, a move to get stronger local options for controlling rising pension costs.

From one end of California to the other, hundreds of cities are facing a tsunami of pension costs that officials say is forcing them to reduce vital services and could drive some—perhaps many—into functional insolvency or even bankruptcy.

Citing limited options for raising local taxes, the association representing hundreds of California cities warned that rising public employee pension costs might mean fewer services and longer emergency response times over the next several years.

The Public Eye By Brad Branan bbranan@sacbee.com January 21, 2017 – 1:17 PM

In South Lake Tahoe, roads are crumbling, and the city is struggling to find ways to repair years of damage caused by harsh weather and snowplows. Orangevale residents worry that fire crews won’t arrive quickly enough in an emergency after their local fire station was closed during the recession.

California Supreme Court Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, seen in January, wrote the 4-3 ruling that said a government agency’s legal bills are generally public record in cases that have been resolved. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

Maura Dolan December 30, 2016

A government agency’s legal bills for a case that has been resolved are generally public record, a divided California Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

Pension costs for state and local government will begin to rise in 2017 after CalPERS officials voted to throttle back the expectations on profits earned from its $299 billion portfolio.

By John Myers Dec. 21, 2016

In the four years since California’s largest pension fund recalibrated its investment projections, the annual contribution from state and local governments — in effect, the money paid by taxpayers — has slowly been on the rise.

The state’s two largest public pension systems never recovered from huge investment losses during the deep recession and stock market crash in 2008. CalPERS lost about $100 billion and CalSTRS about $68 billion.

The retiring forecaster for California’s largest public employee pension fund offered some final advice on Tuesday: State and local governments should be required to pay more into the system as soon as next year.

State lawmakers rejected a plan on Monday to place limits on individual campaign donations for city and county offices, races where in some California communities there are no restrictions on the size of a legal donation.

In the continuing fallout from the city of Bell’s financial scandal, Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday signed a bill requiring city councils and county boards of supervisors to publicly announce pay and benefit increases for government executives before they are approved by a vote.

The one thing some pension reformers say is needed to cut the cost of unaffordable public pensions: give current workers a less costly retirement benefit for work done in the future, while protecting pension amounts already earned.

Two actuarial associations did not publish a controversial paper by their joint task force, reflecting a split in the profession over whether public pension debt should be measured with risk-free bonds or the earnings forecast for stock-laden investment funds.

High-earning state and local government retirees are scattered around the state, with no one city or agency dominating the list of the biggest pension payouts in 2015, data from an open records advocacy group show.

Twice in recent decades CalPERS fell below 100 percent of the funding needed for promised pensions, and twice CalPERS climbed back. But since a $100 billion investment loss in 2008, the CalPERS funding level has not recovered.

Puerto Rico, Atlantic City and Chicago school district bondholders have reason to fear a fight in court if the ailing governments collapse financially: recent cases show that when municipalities go broke, investors lose when pitted against municipal retirees.

For years, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System has estimated its investments will earn an average of 7.5% or more a year. Now it plans to slowly reduce that rate to 6.5%.

Melody Petersen November 18, 2015

The board of California’s largest public pension fund approved a plan Wednesday to lower its estimate of future investment returns — a move that will require taxpayers to pay billions of dollars more than expected over the next decades.

The Senate on Thursday failed to muster the two-thirds vote to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot requiring large California counties, including Los Angeles, to expand their five-member boards of supervisors to at least seven members.

The San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors would grow to seven members under Senate Constitutional Amendment 8.

By Joe Nelson, The Sun Posted: 07/20/15 – 1:10 PM PDT |

Proposed legislation that would require San Bernardino County and other California counties with populations of 2 million or more to increase their number of elected supervisors from five to seven is gaining momentum in the state Legislature.

An accounting board best known for requiring the calculation and reporting of the debt owed for retiree health care promised government workers, which often turned out to be shockingly large, is having another moment.

CalPERS is considering small increases in employer and employee rates over decades to reduce the risk of big investment losses, a policy that also would lower an earnings forecast critics say is too optimistic.

Pension debts are sky-high, but little interest at the Capitol

By Steven Greenhut May 27, 2015 – 3:10 p.m.

SACRAMENTO — “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true,” wrote the 19th century Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. It must be an enduring trait of mankind and especially of politicians, who often fool themselves (and the public) about major problems.

Employer and employee groups are urging CalPERS to “undertake all efforts” to avoid the “Cadillac Tax,” a 40 percent tax on high-cost health plans imposed in 2018 by President Obama’s health care law, a CalPERS staff report said this month.

A U.S. Supreme Court ruling in January weakens the “vested rights” protection of retiree health care based on a labor contract, potentially making it easier for government employers to cut a growing cost.

The debt or “unfunded liability” state Controller John Chiang reported last week for state worker retiree health care, $72 billion, is larger than the unfunded liability for state worker pensions reported by CalPERS in April, $50 billion.

Adelanto city manager, Hesperia Council highest paid locally

In general, city managers top the pay scale among city employees, and a report released this week by outgoing state Controller John Chiang indicates that the top brass in and around the Victor Valley and Barstow regions are not an exception to this trend.

California’s perpetual political debate over public employee pensions usually focuses on the benefits themselves – whether they are fair compensation for those doing the public’s work or, conversely, too generous.

California taxpayers spend about $40 billion a year to pay their fire chiefs, mayors, tree trimmers and thousands of other city and county employees. Some – including harbor pilots in Los Angeles – make more than $300,000 a year. Others receive as little as $190, the payout for one planning commissioner in tiny Alpine County.

Law enforcement agencies throughout Southern California and the state now track everyday Americans with little public oversight using surveillance equipment straight out of a spy thriller, according to a report from the American Civil Liberties Union of California.

New data on California public pensions from a website created by state Controller John Chiang come at a time of growing anger from taxpayers over the skyrocketing cost of public workers’ retirements. (Cheryl A. Guerrero / Los Angeles Times)

By Marc Lifsher November 13, 2014

A decade ago, many of California’s public pension plans had plenty of money to pay for workers’ retirements.

Government pensions in California remain untouchable, at least for now, after a bankruptcy judge approved Stockton’s plan to repay its creditors Thursday without reducing the city’s pension obligations.

The board of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System voted to add to a recent pension reform law 99 bonuses that can boost workers’ current paychecks and also their future pensions. Here are some of these retirement-enhancing bonuses:

The Sacramento Suburban Water District, which supplies water to some older neighborhoods outside the city, is engaged in a decades-long project to replace its aged, undersized water mains and install meters as required by a new state law.

Ever since Stockton filed for bankruptcy two years ago, Judge Christopher Klein has strongly hinted that he’s willing – perhaps even eager – to declare that city employee pension obligations are debts that could be trimmed along with those of more conventional creditors.

A decade ago new accounting rules directed state and local governments to begin calculating and reporting debt owed for health care promised retirees, which for state workers turned out to be more than the debt owed for pensions.

From the onset of Stockton’s journey through bankruptcy, Judge Christopher Klein has implied, both through comments and rulings, that he sees it as a potential test of whether public employee pensions are debts that could be reduced.

An Assembly committee last week approved a bill aligning the state law covering 20 county retirement systems with federal tax law, disappointing some who want to bar the use of “excess” investment earnings for retiree health care and other purposes.

Capitol Alert The latest on California politics and government May 7, 2014

The “realignment” that Gov. Jerry Brown championed to reduce overcrowding in state prisons has, in turn, created overcrowding in county jails that were already in some distress, according to a new study by the Public Policy Institute of California.

SACRAMENTO – Gov. Jerry Brown has been quietly visiting California counties since the start of the year to see how they are faring under his 3-year-old realignment law that dramatically altered the state’s criminal justice system by increasing the burden on local governments.

CLAREMONT >> Skyrocketing pension costs threatened San Jose’s ability to pay for services and will have the same effect in cities and counties up and down the state if changes aren’t made, that city’s mayor told students and others at Claremont McKenna College on Thursday night.

A superior court judge last week said he plans to uphold a key part of a new state law that curbs ‘spiking’ in county retirement systems, notorious for giving retirees pensions that are much higher than the salaries they earned on the job.

A federal appeals court last week gave Sonoma County retirees another chance to show that an implied contract gave them vested rights to retiree health care, preventing the benefit from being cut to $500 a month.

Leaders of local governments said Wednesday they had been preparing for the increased pension payments they’ll have to pay because of revised assumptions the California Public Employees’ Retirement System board made Tuesday — but hadn’t grown any more comfortable with the sacrifices it will cause.

A divided CalPERS board yesterday approved a faster rate hike for the state urged by Gov. Brown, but opposed by unions. A proposal to give struggling cities the option of more time to phase in the rate hike, seven years instead of five, was rejected.

Gov. Brown yesterday urged CalPERS to speed up a $1.2 billion rate increase needed because workers are living longer. Assembly Speaker John Perez said last week he wants to speed up a $4.5 billion CalSTRS rate hike plan, acting this year not next year as the governor suggested.

The water level in Lake Cachuma is dropping, in part because of sustained drought conditions across the state. (Brian van der Brug, Los Angeles Times / January 14, 2014)

By Bettina Boxall January 31, 2014, 9:24 p.m.

Officials Friday said that for the first time ever, the State Water Project that helps supply a majority of Californians may be unable to make any deliveries except to maintain public health and safety.

The California State Board of Equalization has released its annual report for fiscal year 2012-2013 highlighting more than $56 billion in California taxpayer revenue, a $3.6 billion gain from the previous year.